Common Goldeneye Trying To Eat A Mudpuppy.

[Daniel Cadieux]

While photographing some Common Goldeneyes I noticed this male struggling with a catch. It was far away at first but it made its way close. I happily and eagerly snapped away at the action...all the while thinking it had a fish. When I got home and reviewed the images on the computer I was surprised to find some little dangling arms and legs plus a long "eel-ish" vertically flattened tail. Turns out this fella had caught a Mudpuppy...a large aquatic member of the salamander family. After struggling for a while it finally gave up...to then return to smaller "regular" food fare such as crayfish...

BTW, I just about cried when I reviewed the images on the computer: out of a series of about 100 images, only 2 or 3 images are reasonably sharp...turns out that the scene suffered major softness due to air "shimmer" coming off the water...shimmer that I did not notice at the time of capture due to the excitement. Not that it would have made a difference had I seen it anyhow:bugeyed: At least I got some amazing point-blank range portraits after this when it came to almost minimum focussing distance.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/3200s., f/8, ISO 800.

[Daniel Cadieux]

This image is only to show the Mudpuppy's limb...one of the majority of images that is way soft at 100% magnification (but sort of salvageable for web posting).

[Missy Mandel]

Tack sharp or not.... Daniel you have captured a fantastic nature story, which wins in my books over a perfectly sharp static duck. I love these!

[Karl Egressy]

Great behavior picture, Daniel. I like the low shooting angle, head turn, the little creature in the beak and the water droplets on the head and in the air.

[Raul Padilla]

wow, i like the water drops ambientation, you use a submarine?

[Holger Leyrer]

I agree with Missy. The images are unique and fantastic. Well done, Daniel.

[Frank Schauf]

Great timing, great action.

[Cheryl Flory]

Daniel, How did you get such a low perspective in these images?

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

I suppose that you will have to 'fess up' about your submarine at this point!

Great low shooting angle, action, blue horizon band, sense of action.

Loons will occ. come up with a mudpuppy as well. They sometimes will get it down, but it is a process for sure. It helps that a loon is substantially larger.

Cheers

Randy

[Marina Scarr]

This is a killer image, Daniel! That fish is freakin' huge. I had to do a triple take. Love your low angle, the light, the water droplets. Great job on telling a great story with this image.

[dankearl]

Great subject matter, your self critique is spot on.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks guys!! I looked into submarines but they were too expensive...I opted for a snorkel kit. Seriously though, I lied down on the ice near the edge of open water (the ice is very thick, and the water no less than two feet deep if ever something happened...with the car and a spare clothes only a minute's walk away)

[Randall Farhy]

Daniel, thanks so much for sharing these. While I thoroughly enjoy the well planned and executed artistic pictures, I am also a huge fan of behavioral/environment shots. Not everything will always be spot on with them, but they are important. Now I think I know what I saw swim out from under a bank once! -R

[Declan Troy]

Great stuff Daniel. Bummer about that shimmer negating your effort but what you captured is pretty cool. Nice that you posted the second shot even though it was below your technical standards.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Brilliant behaviour shots Daniel! I am too scared to go near the water with my cameras/lenses. We store everything in a room with dehumidifier when not in use:tinysmile_shy_t:
Forgive my ignorance-what is the "air shimmer" you mentioned above? What causes it?
Well done in capturing those fantastic images!

Kind regards,

[Satish Ranadive]

Classic image with informative story.Tack sharp, beautiful colors,great low angle and composition. Love the golden eye.

Regards,
Satish.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Gabriela, best way to describe "air shimmer" (I'm sure that is not the correct term I used though!!) is like when you drive down a straight dry road during a sunny day and you see "distortion" coming off of it in the distance, or when you look just above a very hot BBQ cover and see some "heat shimmer" coming off of it...that is kinda what I was photographing through, except it was not as pronounced and I did not notice it at time of capture.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Daniel,

When I saw the thumbnail I thought it had its own foot in it's mouth!

Thanks for the comments about the distortion. I was photographing last week on my belly and noticed that a lot of those images came out soft. I wasn't sure if it was the way I was handholding but then realized this could be the culprit! I looked at images that I took while a bit higher from the ground and did see that those were noticeably sharper. Even if it's not noticeable at capture, it's easy to note on the screen.